For the Burds that cannot Soar
by virtualailee
Summary: Justin Hammer was your way-above-average business titan who'd built his empire mongering weapons. Some preferred to call him "not-Stark". That man had it easy. It was as if on the day he was born, all the stars in the universe were inexplicably aligned. But, Justin Hammer providing comfort to arrogant prick Anthony Edward Stark in his time of needs? God, what had the world become?


Question: how hard could it be to find a larger-than-life, genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist in a sprawling tech expo with a guest population the size of Disneyland?

Justin Hammer was your way-above-average business titan who'd built his empire mongering weapons. It's not a very unique branding, he acquiesced, which was why some people – to his unending annoyance – prefer to call him "not-Stark". Still, Justine was fine with it, mostly. Because nobody's considered important enough until he has an arch rival, so for Justin it was Anthony fucking Stark – or these days? _Iron Man._ The best bit was, man to man, Justin was leagues ahead the _better_ one. Unlike somebody, he wasn't the wonder boy by birthright, the scion and sole inheritor to a WW2-contemporary business conglomerate. Every dollar in his account he'd worked hard for. Crawled all the way up by the skin of his palms until he had the great government of US of A handing him contracts themselves. It was _his_ number on their speed dial.

The world was his oyster. The sky was the limit. Kneel before Hammer!

Stark? That man had it _easy_. It was as if on the day he was born, all the stars in the universe were inexplicably aligned. Born with a silver spade in his fucking cakehole. So Mom and Dad died early. What, Justin didn't have a rock for a heart. He sympathised, he truly did. And as he sipped his martini one midnight, raised the glass to forehead level as he toasted the deceased Starks, he thought boy oh boy Stark Jr would surely run his old man's company into the ground in _three months_.

But no.

Stock price soared, revolutions after revolutions from smart guns and mounted artillery to _clean energy…_

When Stark first made a gun brainy six years ago – with in-built GPS and mini-computers to afford compensatory aiming algorithms – and he vacuum-sucked one government contract after another from under Justin's nose, Justin dismissed it as a fluke. One fine evening at the dinner table with the General, he said, "Heh, the more complex a system is the higher the failure rates! Our men would have to fistfight their way back to home base!"

Well. Turned out those guns transformed the entire industry. Fewer people on the field meant fewer casualties, and better aims meant fewer bullets, and fewer bullets meant more money to re-invest into education and healthcare, things that mattered.

But Justin was a pretty good businessman, all right? It was always best to ride the waves when the waves were still a-rolling. They wanted computers to go with their bullets? _Fine_.

Half a year later, Stark did it again. Pulled another invention out of his arrogant ass.

A _fucking suit_.

Now _that_ , Justin thought, that was kind of cool. The Iron Man suit was ingenious. He had to wash his mouth out with a scotch for saying that but who was he gonna kid? And the military was eating off Stark's hand when he'd pitched his idea. _A human pilot has been and will always be the best thing on the field to make a decision._ Hey, what was Stark doing? In the first place, wiring bullets to a CPU was intended to minimise personal presence on warzones, wasn't it? The hypocrite Stark was… This suit thing was going to derail Stark Industries, oh, Justin could see this coming a mile away!

Nope. Because after the birth of the Iron Man suit? It was _Iron Man saves the day!_ and _Iron Man, mankind's salvation!_

Fucking bullshit.

Anyway. Back to the question: where to find a high profile –

 _"Ladies and gentlemen! I present you my father, Howard Stark, from beyond!"_

Of course. The centre stage.

Justin made his way through the throng of party goers and Stark-shoe-lickers. The entire stadium was dark save for the gigantic screen that now had Howard – the resemblance was _uncanny_ indeed – yapping about the future and legacies.

Backstage, maybe?

Wielding _excuse me's_ and _sorry, passing through's_ on his lips, Justin forged ahead to a side door that bore a luminescence green "EXIT" sign. His way was gallingly impeded by two heavy duty bouncers.

"Gentlemen," he greeted smarmily. "I just need a quick word with Mr Stark backstage. Before his cue to get back _onstage_ , so."

The one on the left squinted at the laminated "Presenter" badge that was hanging off his "Stark Expo" lanyard. No more than a curt nod, he pulled the drape aside and motioned for Justin to enter.

Justin had been to many backstages… rock concerts, business conferences, Victoria Secret's catwalks… and they all had _people_ in them. Chock full of people. Where were the can-can girls in red, white and blue bikinis anyway? As Justin stepped further into the darkened space, it was as if he'd suddenly gone deaf. The fairly muted applause and cheers from the crowd just died. All he could hear was the soles of his $38 000 Testoni dress shoes tapping against the wood board.

"Anthony?" he called out, because his own voice was heavenly in the depth of nothingness.

Then something shattered – glass on wood – a subdued groan and a _fucking body_ dropped on the ground. Justin ran towards it – wait, out-of-character alert: shouldn't he be running _away_ from it? – and rounded a tight corner to see what he thought he would pay a million bucks to see.

Stark was half-lying on the carpet, his head turned away from the door where Justin was standing at. He had an elbow propping up the rest of his upper body, shards of glass strewn dangerously close to his wrist. There was a tense hunch to the posture and from the way the free hand was gripping the frayed edge of the carpet?

Justin was at once by Stark's side. He was curled tightly into himself, his head bowed so low that his chin grazed his chest. Just as Justin make to grab him by the shoulder, Stark dropped, favouring to free his hand to clutch at his breast – left side of it, Justin noticed – and a slight groan escaped his pale lips.

"OK… uh, calm down…" Justin wrung his hands uselessly. He wasn't even sure if Stark was aware of his presence. He reached out again for the shoulders when Stark's eyes peeled open, glazed, wary, and coated with agony. Justin fished his phone out of his pocket. It was instinctive, almost mechanical, and his fingers went straight to "2" – Jack's phone, because bless his soul, what would he do if he didn't have Jack on speed dial? – when a clammy hand darted out of nowhere and closed around his wrist.

"Jesus Christ!"

"Don't…"

Stark's bottom lip quivered with the exertion. For a man looking like death warmed over, he sure had some grip. But this was Iron fucking Man after all, which begged the question, what was Iron Man doing on the floor?

"No pictures… or videos…"

" _What?_ " Justin blinked himself out of stupor. That wasn't what he was doing. That never came to mind at all. Actually, _that_ would be the most tactical thing to do given current circumstances, wouldn't it? Imagine tomorrow's headlines: _Loss of leadership at SI, unknown malady troubling Stark. Iron Man out of commission!_

40 points down. At _least_.

Even at the apex of sheer misery, Stark was still thinking two steps ahead of him.

Had he mentioned how much he hated Anthony Stark?

"Look, I'm calling Jack, all right? He – he, uh – we can get paramedics here – to help, you need help… shit…"

Stark coughed and squeezed his eyes shut. His hand came up to his collar, tugging his bowtie loose but his fingers were shaking too much to be of any use. Justin grimaced openly as he looked around the room. They were truly alone and thoroughly fucked.

Something that sounded like a wheeze and phlegmy cough drew his attention back to the hot mess that was lying before him. Stark was fading. His muscles were lax, the lines in his forehead had smoothened and his breathing had eased. It wasn't respite, because Stark wasn't yet running his mouth or threatening to put Hammer Industries out of business, because he looked like he'd resigned to napping on the fucking carpet.

Justin himself turned a shade whiter at that. "Yeah, no. Paramedics. 911? Yeah, 911. You need the hospital – _"_

 _"_ Justin… please."

A sliver of brown eyes watched him under hooded lids. Justin swallowed, and stowed his phone. Stark was the genius here, right? So he'd got to be planning something, _right?_

He went back to scratching at his neck – a futile ado – given how the tremors were hitting him hard. Justin huffed and stilled those cold hands with his. He levelled a silent look at the other, wordlessly asking _"Let me?"_ to which – thankfully man was a genius – he appeared to understand. Justin undid the bowtie and let it hang uselessly around his neck, and began to unbutton the top three buttons of his white dress shirt.

"Holy sh-"

Blue. Fucking. Light. _Blue fucking light! Homo sapiens_ don't have blue lights _embedded_ in their chests, do they? Justin didn't have one for sure – what the _fuck_ was that _thing_ doing in the middle of his chest? And fuck, fuck, fuck, there were ghastly looking black veins crisscrossing across the sternum, and smoke.

Smoke.

"Oh my God, Stark… what the – _what are you?_ "

Stark was oblivious to the rambling and swearing and _everything else_ because he was too preoccupied with filling his lungs with oxygen. So Justin made sure to upkeep his look of horror until Stark took notice, so they could all move on to what must be the obligatory exposition of the glowing MacGuffin.

"It's my… pacemaker," Stark said simply. He was breathing again. Finally. Justin did not fancy himself attending to a dead Anthony Stark backstage, alone, while Howard Stark's hologram was out there talking to the people. "My souvenir from Afghanistan, all right?"

Justin – and the whole wide world – knew about Afghanistan, about some grievous, life-changing injury that Stark came back with. Iron Man had this light in his chest, too. The fuel cell, Justin guessed. He never knew the thing was actually a God damn _chest implant_. Stark always kept it well hidden under layers of clothes whenever he made public appearances.

"So," Justin licked his cracked lips as he considered his words, "if I take this off your chest, you die?"

Checkmate.

"That's… the general idea." Stark worked up a smirk. "Now that you're equipped with that information, are you going to kill me?"

" _Kill you?_ " Justin repeated the words like he'd tasted burnt foie gras. "Your chest is fucking _smoking._ I could've just hidden you behind that cabinet and walked away."

"You do that," Stark sighed. He closed his eyes as Justin plopped his ass not-so-graciously on the floor beside him.

"What, are you giving up already?" Justin challenged, but without heat. "This doesn't sound like the Iron Man Americans have come to know and love."

"Oh? How well do you know that guy?"

"Well enough to know what an attention seeker he is. I would've hired some daredevil schmuck to pilot the suit. What were you thinking anyway?" Justin glanced at the still lying man, a crease slowly forming in between his eyes. "It's reckless, and _dangerous_."

Stark chuckled. The rumble came deep from his chest, and he grimaced lightly. Justin stilled where he sat, probably expecting a Facehugger to tear through his thorax. "You are no hero," Stark wheezed out, "and I'm no coward."

"At least I'm not a killer."

No, Justin wasn't being duplicitous – so maybe selling weapons meant having blood on his hands, too. But, he'd never seen the lights go out in people's eyes, or brain matters when a bullet blew up a skull. He'd never woken up in the middle of the night _scared shitless_ because with nightmares like these, they haunt.

"So end this," Stark whispered. He cracked an eye open and saw Justin hovering above him again. "End _me_. Make your wet dream come true."

"Jesus Christ. I want to see your company crash and burn. I want to see you miserable. I want to take a dump at your front yard." And he took a deep breath, steeling himself. "But I've never wished you dead."

That was all he could say before Stark-people encroached the room as noiseless as elite SWAT troopers, shoved him out of their way – you're fucking welcome, by the way – and hauled their ill boss onto a gurney.

After that, Tony Stark went suspiciously missing from the media's attention for a couple of days. Justin was _not_ intentionally keeping an eye out for a Stark-public-sighting, by the way. After all the hoo-ha Stark Expo had kicked up, he thought Stark would've just white-knuckled his way into work.

Stark eventually came up on the 2 o'clock news today, waving at a group of employees having lunch at the company's foyer. His colour had improved though the rings under his eyes lingered, and Justin found himself incapable of _not_ glancing at his chest every three seconds, expecting the fabric covering the arc reactor to catch fire or something. SI soon issued an official statement that their CEO was unable to follow up on the Stark Expo for personal reasons, and that the list of presenters on the upcoming Tech Festival was just made available on their website.

Justin found out he made the cut.

On the big day itself, he was all fired up to sell the shit out of his new array of second gen weaponries only to realise his booth was set up near the public restroom and farthest away from the centre stage. _Well, fuck you too, Tony Stark._ On the table that Jack was about to arrange their display units however, had a basket of sunflowers. It was signed anonymously bearing just: _Thank you_.

Naturally Justin placed the basket beside the Ex-Wife case and tossed the note into the wastepaper basket.

"Let's get the show on the road, Jack!"


End file.
